26
X11 Secondary Selection (www.cs.man.ac.uk)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by wlfrn@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The secondary-selection is used when the cursor is in some focussed Recipient window, in order to grab some text (or whatever) from some Donor window (possibly the same window as the Recipient) and have that text pasted at the Recipient's insertion-point (overwriting any primary-selection in the Recipient).

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Quazatron@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I assumed primary is ctrl-c/ctrl-v and secondary is select/middle-click. I've never come across this ctrl-middle-click, it does the same with and without the ctrl key.

I seen to recall reading something this week about a distro dropping middle click, so I probably conflated both issues and failed.

But you're right, I did not read the fine article.

[-] wlfrn@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 days ago

There are lots of ways to move data between or within graphical windows! But the list is shrinking

  • clipboard - cltr-c / ctrl-v
  • drag and drop - mouse selection, mouse drag
  • primary - mouse selection -> middle click (or shift+ins); moves text cursor
  • secondary - ctrl+select (alt+select in emacs); secondary doesn't move text cursor. largely forgoten. motif, patched gtk; not in qt, tk, mainline gtk, etc
  • cut-buffer - deprecated everywhere. set by application using X11 window property for state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System_selection

this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
26 points (96.4% liked)

Linux

57274 readers
355 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
nooter692@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz